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WatchGuard solutionprovides transparency andvisibility into Anthem College’snationwide networkProviding quality post-secondary education for more than a century, AnthemCollege prepares students for graduation with flexible, career-focusedprograms. Anthem College is comprised of eight brands and 34 campusesacross the United States as well as Anthem Online. They currently support2,300 staff and over 12,000 students.SituationWith 43 total sites across the U.S., including 34 physical campuses and severallarge data centers, Anthem College’s IT network was complex and challengingto manage. Different programs utilized specialty-based applications andthey were undergoing continual program expansion. Consolidation into onecentralized system was a top priority for Anthem College to be able to quicklyconfigure and manage their devices and appliances at each location.“With the previous manufacturer we were using, we didn’t have the abilityto deploy these appliances centrally or manage them centrally and thatpresented a pretty big challenge to the Anthem IT Department in being ableto keep pace with the organization,” said Aaron Anderson, Vice President,Information Technology, Anthem College.WatchGuard Case Study Education Anthem CollegeCustomer:Anthem United StatesSize:12,000 Students34 CampusesProduct:WatchGuard XTM 530WatchGuard XTM 820WatchGuard XTMVWatchGuard Dimension 1 of 5
“My biggest challenge is providing 99% uptime forall of our users internally and externally.”Aaron Anderson, Vice President, Information Technology, Anthem CollegeAt any given time, their system needed to administer up to 15,000 users, providing accessto course materials and online resources critical to their student’s success. With such alarge user group, system stability was crucial for students and staff. Anthem College lookedto maintain a high Service Level Agreement (SLA), giving users access at all times. Withan increasing student population and plans to expand, high demand on bandwidth hadbecome a pressing issue, with noticeable slowdowns during peak times such as testingperiods. “My biggest challenge is providing 99% uptime for all of our users internally andexternally,” said Anderson.Security was also a constant concern for the safety of their environment and in order tomaintain compliance, as Anthem College has both intellectual property and Payment CardIndustry (PCI) compliance to protect.An uncontrolled environment had the potential to disrupt educational instruction forstudents across the country. “A user could open an infected attachment and impact theentire network; or that could produce and send data that is private to our organization,”said Anderson.The organization had been running Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and struggledwith a lack of network visibility and control. Anthem College needed the ability to respond tosecurity threats, meet increased demands on bandwidth, and fulfill ever evolving user needs.SolutionAnthem College explored options to centralize their system and boost the organization’sagility. Having experienced WatchGuard products in the past, Anthem College knew theycould deliver top quality and performance, while offering competitive pricing.Together with SL Powers, an Expert WatchGuard reseller, Anthem College rolled out XTM530security appliances in most campuses, XTM820’s in bigger locations such as datacenters, andthe XTMV virtualized security platform at their largest data center location. Anthem Collegeincluded LiveSecurity to provide software support, extended hardware warranty andsecurity alerts. The seamless deployment of their WatchGuard solution resulted in rapidconversion time.“Compared to what we had planned, what actually happened for the deployment wasamazing in my eyes. Switching from an MPLS to a direct internet access circuit with aWatchGuard device was a lot faster and we were able to convert our campuses with probablytwo to three ping loss, which is almost unheard of,” said Jeff Crossley, Systems Engineer,Anthem College.WatchGuard Case Study Education Anthem College2 of 5
“WatchGuard definitely leads the industry in ease of management,features and affordability. WatchGuard puts a lot of features intotheir appliances and solutions that achieve results that, in the past,required lots of different things in order to accomplish.”Rory Sanchez, President and CEO, SL PowersUtilizing the expertise of SL Powers to implement the system and provide ongoing support ensures quick response timefor any issues and easy maintenance of the system long-term, while still enjoying WatchGuard’s world-class functionality.“WatchGuard definitely leads the industry in ease of management, features and affordability. WatchGuard puts a lot offeatures into their appliances and solutions that achieve results that, in the past, required lots of different things in orderto accomplish. Combining those and giving you one platform to work on not only reduces your cost of deployment, butalso the cost of managing that solution long term,” said Rory Sanchez, President and CEO, SL Powers.Anthem College has also implemented WatchGuard Dimension in order to increase visibility into network data and gaininsight into potential security threats. Rich reporting functionality and real-time monitoring allows for informed decisionson policy deployment and risk management. With one central dashboard to manage their locations across the country,Anthem College can easily find traffic patterns and better understand how bandwidth is being consumed.WatchGuard’s solution has offered them centrally located and in-house control at their fingertips. “Before we could notcontrol a lot of the connectivity between our campuses, it was always handled by the ISP, whereas now it’s in-house and wecan actually control who does what and route any information we need based off the WatchGuard device,” said Crossley.BenefitsUp to 10x bandwidth offers greater organizational agility and opportunityfor growthAs soon as the WatchGuard solution installation was complete, system engineers noticed significant bandwidth wasimmediately freed up. In addition, with better control over their system, Anthem College now has the ability to filterout wasteful data usage, increasing bandwidth even more. According to Crossley, “Over the past 12 to 18 months ourbandwidth has increased at each campus level at least five to ten times what it was.”More bandwidth has improved the end-user experience for students, who no longer experience a slowdown during hightraffic periods. There is also the opportunity expand to add more users as Anthem College continues to grow, despiteincreasing network requirements.WatchGuard Case Study Education Anthem College3 of 5
Benefits cont.“In the future with Anthem Education, we seeadding another 30 to 40 sites. WatchGuard willmake it extremely quick and painless for us. TheWatchGuard devices allow us to scale very quickly.”Jeff Crossley, Systems Engineer, Anthem College“In the future with Anthem Education, we see adding another 30 to 40 sites. WatchGuardwill make it extremely quick and painless for us. The WatchGuard devices allow us to scalevery quickly,” said Crossley.Improved scalability enables Anthem College to more quickly respond to market demand,deploy new programs, new course offerings, and new locations to prepare more studentsto succeed.Centralized dashboard offers real-time visibility and rapidpolicy deploymentConsolidating their siloed systems into one manageable platform and installingWatchGuard Dimension has allowed greater visibility into Anthem College’s network. Priorto implementing the WatchGuard solution, several products were needed to accomplishthe equivalent service offered in their new dashboard. Administrators can now useDimension to better understand user-behavior and consumption patterns, and pinpointsecurity and performance issues.“I look at the central dashboard every day. It is up on my screen and it gives me real-timevisibility or near-time visibility to the bandwidth usage at each one of our 43 sites,”said Anderson.WatchGuard’s single platform creates a one-stop shop for system engineers, who can nowcentrally deploy policies quickly and effectively for locations nationwide, reducing traveltime and IT costs. Adding new devices and setting up new locations is simpler than everand requires less time.“Centralized policy management gives us the ability to make a change and deploy it toeach one of the locations that may have an impact at the click of a button,” said Anderson.Increased security protection and transparency foreasy complianceSince implementing WatchGuard’s XTM Solution and Dimension for security intelligence,Anthem College has increased transparency into their network, stopping security threatsthat had created concern. Previously, Anthem College had experienced problems withstudents trying to visit proxy sites, which administrators can now easily limit with improvedcontrol over their network. From the central dashboard, staff can ensure desktopsaccessing the network are secure and protect vulnerable data from being exposed.WatchGuard Case Study Education Anthem College4 of 5
Benefits cont.“With the WatchGuard platform, we’ve noticedthat we have more visibility into the type of datathat’s being sent out which enables us to makemore informed decisions, maintain our compliance,and provide our company with a higher level ofprotection from inadvertent threat.”Aaron Anderson, Vice President, Information Technology, Anthem College“With the WatchGuard platform, we’ve noticed that we have more visibility into the type ofdata that’s being sent out which enables us to make more informed decisions, maintain ourcompliance, and provide our company with a higher level of protection from inadvertentthreat,” said Anderson.The WatchGuard solution gives Anthem College the transparency and data needed toprovide as evidence for potential audits. This gives ease of mind to the school that allcompliance needs are met.The biggest impact for Anthem College has been the ability to respond. With WatchGuard’ssolution in place, they can respond to security threats, increasing demands, and everevolving user needs.“I’m very happy with the decision we made on the WatchGuard rollout, it’s been veryeffective, very stable and very robust at the same time” said Anderson.About WatchGuardWatchGuard Technologies, Inc. is a global leader of integrated, multi-function businesssecurity solutions that intelligently combine industry standard hardware, Best-of-Breedsecurity features, and policy-based management tools. WatchGuard provides easy-to-use,but enterprise-powerful protection to hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide.WatchGuard products are backed by WatchGuard LiveSecurity Service, an innovativesupport program. WatchGuard is headquartered in Seattle, Wash. with offices throughoutNorth America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. To learn more, visit WatchGuard.com.SMART 05 Fifth Avenue South, Suite 500, Seattle, WA 98104www.watchguard.comWatchGuard Case Study Education Anthem College5 of 5
programs. Anthem College is comprised of eight brands and 34 campuses across the United States as well as Anthem Online. They currently support 2,300 staff and over 12,000 students. Situation With 43 total sites across the U.S., including 34 physical campuses and several large data centers, Anthem
